“You are smiling again.” She ran the back of her hand over her nose. Again. “And you don’t seem to be a monster when you smile.”
“I am very much a monster,” he whispered. By this child and her damned nursemaid’s blatant rejection of his commands, he was a wholly ineffective monster. What was the benefit of being a hideous beast if you couldn’t even manage to run a child off?
She angled her head to better study his burned cheek. As a flash of fear lit her eyes, his mouth went dry with the familiar shame and dread of being studied like a circus oddity. No, people did not love him. He was reviled, pitied, and feared, but never one to be loved. After all, if his own mother hadn’t been able to love him transformed as he’d been, what other person could? He thrust aside those weakening emotions. It was far better for the girl to be fearful. Terror would keep her away and, more importantly, keep him sane and solitary.
The girl took a step, toward him. Toward him? “You weren’t always a monster, I suspect,” she murmured. “My mama spoke of you often and said she loved you very much.” Oh, God. Agony burned him with the same vicious ferocity of that misfire years ago. Derek rubbed a hand over his chest. He’d thought himself incapable of feeling, anymore. Apparently, there was still something left of his heart...even if it was just raw with the loss of his sister. His ward pointed a finger at him. “You never came to visit when you returned.”
Monster that he was, he’d still not point out to this child the reason he’d not come was because his wounds had found him languishing in a hospital, on the cusp of death. And then, when he’d managed to survive and awakened, he’d found the monster he’d become. “I was otherwise busy,” he bit out and made to step around her. Who would believe that he’d so desire a visit with Davies? Anything to end this torturous questioning.
The child stepped in his path, blocking his forward escape. “My mama wanted to see you.” There was an accusatory note in her words that wrenched at a heart he’d believed incapable of feeling. Ah, God. With her goodness and innocence, Edeline had been the only light in the whole Winters family. He and George had merely been worthless rakes and rogues who’d lived for themselves. She had possessed a pure soul. He flexed his jaw. In the end, they’d proven cursed; every last one of them. The little girl tapped him on the hand. “Did you hear me?”
“I did.” This was to be his hell, then. Not the marks upon his face or his crippled leg, but rather a lifetime saddled with a child who’d not allow him to wallow in the misery of his own existence. Derek cursed roundly.
“Oh, you should not say hell. That is not at all polite.” She wrinkled her little brow. “Or bloody. But sometimes using the word bloody is acceptable. If you have scraped your knees and are bleeding, then you may use it. Or if you lose a tooth.” She opened her mouth wide and jammed a finger somewhere in the vicinity of her front teeth. “I lost that one and it bled. So I could use the word...and...”
Derek’s fingers twitched with the need to clamp his hands over his ears to blot out the child’s incessant prattling. This meeting officially concluded with his obstinate ward, he stalked the remaining distance to his office, pressed the handle of the door, and stepped inside. “Goddamn it.”
“And that word is never—”
Derek slammed the door so hard it shook on its frame.
“—appropriate.” The muffled response carried through the panel.
He shot a hand out and turned the lock, just as the eight-year-old tormentor rattled the handle. “Now, go,” he boomed.
Davies stood at the edge of his desk, his face a ghastly shade of white. Ignoring the other man, Derek strode across the room in his uneven, jerky manner, and made his way over to the sideboard. He rested his cane against the edge and grabbed the nearest bottle and glass. Abandoning his walking stick for the liquid fortitude in hands, he limped back to his desk and sat. “We met this week, Davies,” he snapped. “I do not like unexpected meetings.”
“Y-yes, Your Grace.”
He liked it a good deal less when he was in the midst of kissing Mrs. Lily Benedict until she was moaning for more of his touch.
The door handle jiggled again. “You need to apologize to the lady.” Oh, blast. She’d still not gone away. Derek dug his fingertips into his temple, ignoring the frowning Davies. He’d certainly not take lessons on proper and improper language from a blasted child. “My mama always said gentlemen should be kind to ladies.” The gentleman he had been, died on the battlefield. Ignoring the chastisement being delivered on the other side of his door by a too-old-for-her-years child, he poured himself a healthy snifter of brandy.
“Did you say something?” The child, who would not quit, pressed the door handle once more. “I cannot hear you.”
Derek took a long swallow and welcomed the fiery path the brandy blazed down his throat. Yes, despite the logic in sending away Mrs. Lily Benedict, it made far more sense to allow her to stay on—insolence and all. Let that one deal with the child. And then he could be free to wallow in the misery of his and his former friends’ making.
His man-of-affairs alternated his disapproving stare between the doorway and Derek. Tiring of his silence, Derek waved him to his seat. “Bloody hell, Davies, get on with it already, will you?”
The old servant jumped. “Of course, Your Grace,” he said rushing to claim his seat. He settled his ledgers and folios on the edge of Derek’s desk and drew forth one black book. “I am here to discuss the status of Lady Flora’s governess.” That nasally, monotone deliverance could have proven Wellington’s most effective weapon against the bloody French. All Davies would have needed to do was speak and Boney’s forces would have slumbered to death from the sheer, excruciating pain of his drawn out sentences.
For how many of this man’s visits, and the doctor’s, been the only deviation from Derek’s otherwise solitary existence? There were no visitors come to call. No balls or soirees. No breathtaking beauties. Until her.
“...As such, there is the matter of hiring a new governess for Her Ladyship.”
The dauntless Lily Benedict flashed to mind as she’d been with her thick, black lashes fluttering and her lips kissed crimson. Derek tapped his pen back and forth in a rhythmic movement meant to grate.
Davies paused mid-sentence. He dropped his gaze to Derek’s glove-encased fingers. The hint of a frown marred his thin lips. “I-I understand the latest h-has—”
“Fled?” He winged a brow up.
Coughing into his hand, the servant continued. “Found a post elsewhere.” Is that what Davies would call running off after catching a glimpse of her employer? Then the man was corked in the brain. Horror, revulsion, and terror had blended in the young woman’s eyes as she’d taken hasty flight. “I have already put out inquiries for a replacement for Miss Calpepper...”
Unlike Lily who’d not only stormed into his household and stolen an interview with him, but also stood bold and unrepentant before him twice. And kissed me. She’d put her mouth against his and not shuddered and whimpered in fear, but rather moaned with desire. Ultimately he’d succeeded in running her out of his private corridors. Yet, on both occasions, it hadn’t been his hideous flesh to send the lady into flight. In fact, by the whitening at the corners of her mouth and her rapidly drawn breaths, the threat to sack her had roused greater terror in the lady.
“...The woman to replace her will of course be proper and...”
Davies’s words ran in and out of focus. Derek stopped tapping the pen and raised it close to his eye. He studied the black tip, turning it left and right. The midnight shade put him in mind of the brave, but wholly stupid, woman. For the shock and fear he could all but smell emanating from her slender frame, she’d spoken with him and to him as though the better portion of his face hadn’t been licked by flame.
“...You needn’t worry after the suitability of the young woman. I will see to...”
He narrowed his gaze upon that black tip. Such a woman would not run off the way the previous nursemaids and go
vernesses had prior to her, nor the way they would continue to flee after she left. The solitary life he hungered for would be continually interrupted by a parade of young ladies who could not dwell within the beast’s den.
You do not say very much, do you?
And the bolder his sister’s child would become, invading his sanctuary, and on and on this process would go with his blasted man-of-affairs. Life would be a constant search for the next governess until either the girl became a woman and made her blasted Come Out or her other damned rake of a guardian reformed his ways and took mercy on Derek’s black soul.
He tossed the pen down. “I have found the girl a governess.” A tempting woman who entices me with every exchange and who posed the greatest risk for it.
Davies removed his wired spectacles from the bridge of his nose. “Your Grace?” Did the man believe the removal of those glasses should aid his hearing?
Derek laid his forearms upon the surface of the desk and steepled his gloved fingers. “A governess. The lady has been hired. You are to deal with her. You are to enumerate her responsibilities.” I merely wanted an introduction to the child. An introduction that you as her guardian should, at the very least, provide. He cleared his throat. “See her properly introduced to the girl.”
The white-haired servant withdrew a handkerchief. He dusted his perfectly unblemished lenses with the crisp, white fabric. “And the lady’s name, Your Grace?”
The husky contralto of the young woman’s speaking voice wrapped around his memory; seductive and soothing all at once. He’d long ago given up hope of ever knowing that passion and ease with a woman. “Mrs. Lily Benedict,” he said gruffly.
The servant puzzled his brow. “Well.” Yes, well. After all, what could the man say to his reclusive, half-mad employer taking on the responsibility of selecting a proper governess? Then the older man flared his eyes and a flush mottled his cheeks.
Ah, so the astute servant even now pieced together that the woman Derek had been embracing in the corridor a short while ago was, in fact, one and the same. He took a perverse pleasure in the stiffly proper man’s shock. Regardless, the same way he did not answer to impudent children or insolent ladies was the way in which he’d not answer to this man. “I have worked out the terms of the young woman’s wages.” He proceeded to enumerate the details he’d promised Lily. As he listened, the solicitor’s brown eyes went huge at the ridiculous sum he’d settled upon her.
Flummoxed, the usually unflappable Davies sprawled in his seat. “But, Your Grace—?”
“Unless you have specific reasons Mrs. Benedict is unsuitable, the matter is concluded.” Even then, it still wouldn’t matter. The lady was fearless and bold, and the perfect governess for his miserable household. And I desire her. Do not forget that crucial part. Annoyance thrumming through him, Derek shoved back his chair and the legs scraped along the wooden surface. “This meeting is concluded.” The fire flashing in the lady’s crystalline aquamarine eyes danced around his memory; the way her eyes blazed with passion under the force of his kiss. An unexpected hunger slammed into him, shocking with the staggering power of it. Once upon his youth, he would have laid claim to such a lady and she would have delighted in his touch. No more. That ease with ladies had burned up with the skin upon his face. Self-hatred consumed him.
Women such as her did not belong in his solitary, dark world. Disgust, loathing, and rage ate away at Derek leaving him, instead, with a familiar, welcome numbed fury. Davies made to go, but he stayed him. “I do not want any dealings with Mrs. Benedict. You are to handle anything and everything pertaining to the lady. She is to meet weekly with you and you are to ascertain if she’s seeing to her responsibilities.” Then he could be safely protected from hungering for things that could never be for one such as him.
Davies opened his mouth to speak.
“Now, this meeting is concluded. Get the hell out of my sight.”
The servant dropped his gaze to the spectacles in his hands, but not before Derek caught the heavy dose of antipathy spilling from his eyes. “Very well, Your Grace,” he said between tense lips. As he stood, he placed his meticulous wire-rimmed frames on the bridge of his nose and then, with his rescued folios, took his leave.
Derek stared after him a moment. His faithful man-of-affairs was no different than any other servant or peer who’d looked upon him with derision. His loyalty to the late dukes was to be commended and, he wagered, the reason he braved employment in his new master’s employ. The only certainty was that Davies cared about the whole damned ducal title and what went with it more than Derek did, or ever would. He’d never wanted it. He wanted it even less now, as it required him to deal, in some way, with the living.
He strode over to the corner of the room where the curtains were tightly drawn. Involuntarily, he gripped the fabric and pulled it back. Sunlight streamed into the room and with a curse, he dropped the material. In an attempt to blot out the white dots dancing in his vision, he pressed a hand to his eye. For all the time in which he’d inhabited his brother’s townhouse, he’d left the dark walls but once. That one time to carry out an act of evil retribution.
Memories flitted in of St. Cyr’s agonized expression. Derek violently thrust back all thought of that day. No, he no longer cared to venture out into the living. What was there for him outside these halls?
Nothing.
And yet, neither was there anything within them.
Chapter 9
With her employer’s raspy breathing echoing around her mind, Lily raced through the halls of his townhouse and finally reached her chambers. Gasping for breath, she flung the door open and rushed inside. Yet, no amount of running could drive back what she’d done. Nay, what they had done. She collapsed against the door and borrowed strength from it. Her chest rose and fell under the force of her rapidly indrawn breaths.
Oh, God, she’d kissed Derek, the Duke of Blackthorne. She slid her eyes closed. And more, she’d wanted him to continue kissing her and exploring her skin and stirring that warm heat in her belly she’d not believed herself capable of.
...You shameful harlot...
Lily opened her eyes. Knots twisted in her belly and she moved on stiff legs to her bed and sat on the edge. All those vile, ugly, hurtful, and, ultimately, true accusations leveled by her father long ago had never proven truer than they did in this moment. She did not think of her future security dangled by Holdsworth, or the fact that she’d expressly gainsaid her employer’s orders. No. She thought of him. Not the duke. Not His Grace. Not even George’s brother. Rather, Derek. Now, knowing his name, nay having the right to use it, made him real in ways he’d not been prior to this moment.
With fingers that trembled, Lily touched her swollen lips. Instead of worrying for her future and security, she sat here, dreaming of his kiss. “Do you believe he is even now thinking of you?” she whispered into the silent room. Lily let her quavering hand fall to her side. She’d seen the hard glint in his eye and knew the moment he’d ordered her from the hall that the inevitable, ultimate dismissal awaited. Her thoughts really should be trained on the very fact.
The twisting and turning in her belly foretold disaster. There would be no leniency from Holdsworth. He did not care about her beyond his own dire financial circumstances and the security represented by that diamond. Now, her impulsivity had led to her ruin. Again. Lily flopped back on the bed and tossed her arms wide upon the white satin coverlet. She stared up the white plaster ceiling and willed her pounding heart to calm. Her efforts proved futile. For, with one rash decision to enter the forbidden halls of a man aptly called The Beast, she’d thrust herself back into that same uncertain world of seven years ago. She was that same, scared, panicked girl boarding a mail coach to London.
Where would she go now? The options were once again, the same—starve on the streets of London and play whore in the street. Or become some wealthy nobleman’s fancy piece. “I will not be that woman,” she whispered into the quiet. “Not again.” I shoul
d have thought of that before I put demands to a duke. A fine mist blurred her eyes and she blinked, trying to clear vision. How did she account for those useless, salty mementos? The last tears she’d shed had been the day her father had called her a whore and sent her from her family.
A soft rap on the door filled the quiet and, thankfully, cut across the tidal wave of panic threatening to pull her under. She shoved herself to a seated position and dangled her legs over the bed. Perhaps she’d merely imagined the—Knock-knock-knock.
Lily dashed a hand over her face. Who was seeking her out? As soon as the thought slid in, cold, hard reality crashed down. She was being turned out. She cast a frantic glance around the room. Whoever was charged with the firing of His Grace’s insufficient staff didn’t necessarily know that Lily was even now in her chambers. In this labyrinth of a home, she could quite easily hide herself in the empty rooms and hallways until... Knock-knock-knock. She swallowed down the ball of fear threatening to choke her. There was no hiding. A person, no matter how obscure they wished to make themselves, was ultimately found.
Lily rose slowly and walked on stiff legs to the door. Knock-knock-knock. Before her courage deserted her, she pulled the door quickly open and in spilled a tiny, white skirt-wearing child. She shot her hands out and immediately caught the girl.
“I did not believe you would ever open the door,” the child said with a disapproving frown on her lips.
Grateful for the innocent diversion presented by her charge, or rather the girl who was to have been her charge if she’d been able to follow simple commands, Lily closed the door behind her. “My lady,” she greeted, mustering a proper smile for Flora’s benefit.
The little girl giggled, as all her earlier displeasure faded. “I am just Flora.”
“And what a beautiful name it is,” she returned, oddly calmed by this small child.
The girl, perceptive for her tender years, became more serious. Flora folded her arms and eyed her. “Are you still my governess?”
Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) Page 14